For a moment Mr. Desmond was taken aback by the girl's impetuous earnestness. But he was a passionate self-willed man who had never in his life been thwarted or contradicted by any of his household, and his temper was entirely beyond his control. He turned upon her in a fury, and Jean quailed before his violent words.
"Go to your room! Don't let me see you again until you are in a proper frame of mind. Do you think I am a man to be trifled with? Your mother brought evil into my family, and you are seeking to follow in her steps. I wish to heaven, I had cast her out when she first appealed to me! Your blood is the same as hers. I was a fool to think I could train you, and turn you out a respectable woman. Do you want to leave me? You can make your choice. If you won't obey, you can go and starve, for not one penny will I give towards your support away from me!"
This, interspersed with some very strong language, was the substance of his speech.
Jean fled up to her room frightened and angry, but not submissive. She did not see her grandfather before he left for London, and was very quiet for the next few days—so quiet that Elsie informed Mary that "the master had broken Miss Jean's spirit entirely."
"She locks herself up in her room for hours together, and walks about with her lips as grim as the master's."
"She is but a child," responded Mary. "She'll learn to give in to the master soon. 'Tis her high spirits that won't bear the curb."
[CHAPTER III]
A SPEEDY RETURN
"Those things that a man cannot amend in himself
or in others, he ought to suffer patiently
until God orders things otherwise."—Thomas à Kempis.
IT was a bright spring afternoon in town. Colonel Douglas was wending his way from his club in Pall Mall to his rooms in a quiet street off Piccadilly. He was due at his sister's house in Palace Gate at five, and he was inwardly pitying himself for the ordeal of sipping tea and making conversation amongst the society men and women generally to be found at Mrs. Talbot's "At home" days. His thoughts were somewhat after this fashion—